Chapter 497 — Erecting a Stele and Inscribing Words

Shen Mu had kept his back to him all along, and Ban Gongcuo's eyes lit up; his heart could not help but surge: "With these two divine legs, why should I fear this brat? With divine legs, my speed in fleeing is first under heaven—if I cannot beat him, I can run! And with the fastest speed under heaven, my fighting strength will rise straight up. I can finish him!"

He was so excited his heart pounded, and a savage light blazed in his eyes. He was just about to stop and strike when sudden alarm rose in his heart, and he hurriedly leaped high into the air.

A streak of sword light flew out of the desert and flashed past the root of his right leg!

Ban Gongcuo cried out in pain, and in midair he shouted fiercely, "Hierarch Shen, your word does not count!"

Shen Mu turned around and said mildly, "It counts. I once cut off one of your legs; I can give you one back. But I will not let you have two divine legs. Great Venerable, I will not see you out."

Hanging in the air, Ban Gongcuo looked down at the divine leg that had fallen, wanting to go pick it up—but the yellow sand below had already swallowed the severed leg.

In the yellow sand, countless streaks of sword light flickered in and out of sight, like silver needles weaving and darting, guarding that divine leg. They were the eight thousand swords transformed from Shen Mu's sword core—clearly, while Ban Gongcuo was trying to bewitch him, Shen Mu had already driven his sword core into the sand.

Ban Gongcuo immediately knew he had lost the initiative. He gritted his steel teeth, and a lotus taller than a man appeared behind him.

He retreated into the flower; the lotus closed, and Ban Gongcuo vanished, man and flower together.

"Hierarch Shen, when next we meet, I will take your head!" His voice grew fainter and fainter, vanishing into the depths of the sand-filled sky.

"The Great Venerable has grown quite bold now."

Shen Mu turned away. Countless flying swords rose from the desert and carried that divine leg to the side of the chest. He said softly, "That is a good thing. Now that he has boldness, killing him next time will not take so much effort."

The chest grew excited, and hurriedly opened its lid, took the divine leg in, and stored it away carefully.

Shen Mu looked at the writing on the cliff and said in a low voice, "If you are still alive, would you come here to look for me? Are you still alive? Tens of thousands of years, one trial after another—have they made you perish, jade and fragrance scattered, turned you into a skeleton where once there was a fair maid..."

He waited quietly beneath the cliff, and for a long time did not leave.

The surrounding hills had all been worn flat by wind and sand—why had this one cliff alone been left?

In his heart there was still a hope that had not gone out.

"Hierarch, there is a great stone stele on this side of the mountain!" Suddenly Long Qilin made a discovery.

Shen Mu's heart stirred, and he hurried over. At the foot of the mountain Long Qilin had found a stone stele. It was half buried in yellow sand, and being at the base of the cliff, it was hard to notice without careful looking.

The stele seemed to possess some wondrous power, resisting wind and sand, never weathered.

There was writing on the stele as well.

Shen Mu looked at the stele and could not help but start. The characters on it were bold and overbearing, reading: "Shen Mu, Hierarch of the Nether Demon Sect, and Great Venerable of the Loulan Golden Palace, lies buried..."

The characters after "lies buried" were blurred, and some were buried in the yellow sand.

Long Qilin was about to go up and brush the sand aside, but Shen Mu said hurriedly, "Fatty Long, it is a trap! Do not touch the sand beneath the stele!"

When Long Qilin heard the word "trap," he hurriedly backed away, not daring to linger an instant.

Shen Mu said with a cold laugh, "To set a trap by such means—he truly underestimates me. The characters below the stele are nothing more than 'lies buried here.' If I brush aside the sand, I will spring his trap and die with no place to be buried!"

Long Qilin shuddered and said, "If the name written on it were mine, I would certainly go up and look..."

Shen Mu looked around. This yellow-sand desert was utterly desolate; apart from them there was no other living thing. No one could be lying in ambush nearby.

"To tell the truth, I am rather curious."

His eyes flickered as he studied the stele buried in the yellow sand. Long Qilin at once had a bad feeling, and said, "Hierarch, do not do anything foolish!"

Shen Mu retreated swiftly backward and laughed: "I would very much like to see whether the man who left this stele to ambush me and the Great Venerable left a signature. So smug and arrogant, he surely left his own name. We will withdraw a hundred li, and then I will work a spell to brush the sand away from beneath the stele!"